The Internet including the World Wide Web (“WWW” or “Web”) are well known today to provide access to information. The Internet is a global network of computers interconnected by network devices and using Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (“TCP/IP”) or other such protocol. With the increasing size and complexity of the Internet, “navigators” or “navigation system” tools have been developed to help users find information on the network. The Web provides Internet-based navigation, information distribution and management, and a dynamic format for communicating on the Web. The Web integrates images, text, audio and video. A user on the Web, by means of a graphical user interface, can transparently communicate with different computers on the Internet, different system applications, and different information formats for files and documents including text, sound and graphics.
Currently, on-line systems on the Web offer a variety of different services to users, for example, private message services, electronic commerce, news, real-time games, access to electronic databases, electronic newsletters, business-to-business transactions, or job placement services. Even though such on-line services are now available, the Web remains essentially an open, multi-point to multi-point network where each user can select and retrieve different information from many different servers. Searching and finding relevant information is sometimes difficult, even for experienced users.
Some people who watch a television program want access to related complementary data, such as stocks and products prices, traffic and weather conditions, athletic records on Olympic Games or updated football scores. Other complementary information associated with a broadcast program may consist of the biography of a player in a football match, historical background on events cited during a news program or a recipe of an apple cake on a cooking show. Some consumers would like access to special services associated with advertised products such as product features, location of points of sales, discounts or coupons.
Some television broadcasts display and radio broadcasts state an Internet address to allow inquiries concerning the program that is broadcast. The user can then turn-on a computer and manually enter the Internet address. Other systems allow the exchange of digital information with a user watching the television by combining this information with the television signal e.g., teletext. However, such systems limit the access to a single information source and this source is entirely under the control of the broadcast or cable television operator.
It is also known to use a television as a terminal for accessing the Web. It is also known to integrate Web and TV by transmitting along with a video signal, a Web page showing for example statistics concerning a player during a sports game. The integration of Web and television, known as WebTV, has been made possible by the arrival of digital TV. In fact, many of the services associated with WebTV are available today on the Web. The data processing technology and the transmission technology used for the television and the Web are converging. Now TV sets are more and more “intelligent”, and this intelligence requires upgrading of hardware for supporting the Web functions.
Unlike the multi-point to multi-point Web network, broadcast radio and television are primarily single-point to multi-point networks. The program is continuously broadcast in the same direction from a transmitter to multiple receivers, from a provider to multiple consumers. Every user receives the same content from a single broadcasting station.
Until recently, there was no way for producers of broadcast television or radio programs to create hyperlinks to access complementary information related to a broadcast program. The systems that are proposed require the transmission of the complementary information in a secondary signal, concurrently with the retransmission of the main program. Transmitting interactive data on interactive television (iTV) involves transmitting data along with normal program content. Two data channels are typically employed in an iTV connection. One is the vertical blanking interval, or VBI (lines at the top of the television raster that are not normally displayed on a television set), and the other is a “backchannel” (e.g., a telephone line). The VBI is typically used to send triggers and links. The backchannel is used to retrieve interactive content to be displayed on the television screen. EIA-608 standard describes data formatting, protocol and channel priority of data encoded in line 21 of the vertical blanking interval. Generally speaking, captions and data encoded in line 21 operate according to Transport A, as described in the ATVEF specification. An overview on the subject and standards is described in a document entitled “Interactive Television for Terrestrial Broadcasters”, by Brad Gilmer, Broadcast Engineering, Sep. 1, 2000, incorporated by reference herein.
With these systems, the radio listeners or television viewers must be equipped with special decoder circuits to recover the complementary information. Proposals based on the transmission of means for identifying television programs or URLs associated with television programs during the vertical blanking interval (VBI) period require special decoders. The problem for providing interactive services to radio listeners or television viewers, is related to the fact that the users of the foregoing devices receive visual and/or oral information. The communication of complementary information to the users requires a specific transmitter on the TV or radio set and a specific receiver on the wireless user device. Without such a specific transmitter and receiver, it is impossible with conventional TV sets, to interact with broadcast programs to seek additional information or services.
International patent application WO 02/091228 (with corresponding European Patent EP1391111 and Taiwan Patent NI-182398 (TW0540235B) both assigned to IBM Corporation) entitled “System and method for enhancing broadcast programs with information on the world wide web” discloses a system and method for enabling a radio listener or a television viewer to access complementary information related to a broadcast program received in real-time without using special receivers, decoders or transmitters for transmitting information from the broadcast program receiver to the user. A person receives a broadcast program, and selects one or more topics drawing his or her attention, to immediately or later access additional information related to these topics from the Word Wide Web. The system is based on the synchronization of the local times between users and transmitters according to a same universal-time, so that the flow of information transmitted and received is always synchronized, independently of the relative positions of the users receivers and transmitters. The synchronization is done referring to a universal time such as the Global Positioning System Time GPS-time, the Global Orbiting Navigational Satellite System GLONASS time or another suitable universal time based on a satellite system. The GPS or GLONASS receivers are connected or integrated to the broadcasting stations. At the receiver side, GPS or GLONASS receivers are integrated or connected to devices e.g., Personal Computers, wearable computers, Personal Digital Assistants PDAs, cell phones or onboard mobile computers that can be independent or separate from the radio or television receivers. The system is also based on a plurality of hyperlinks defined for a given duration corresponding to the retransmission of a program. The hyperlinks are associated with the transmitted information. The hyperlinks can be retrieved, selected and activated by radio listeners or television viewers during the time intervals for which they have been defined. The referenced patent application enables a user to create lists named “Selections Tables” of interesting topics from the received broadcast programs and then to access multimedia information or services related to these topics by connecting to the Internet network.
An object of the present invention is to enable a viewer of a television program or a listener of a radio program to obtain additional information about the program.